


With Hope Comes Faith

by Cuppa_Char



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 6x6, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Peter+Theo To The Rescue, Possibly Pre-Slash, post ghosted, sick!stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:08:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9279338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuppa_Char/pseuds/Cuppa_Char
Summary: “I’m going to get Stiles back. And you’re coming with me.”----AKA: A Peter+Theo To The Rescue Fic. Post 6X6 Theo enlists Peter in retrieving Stiles from the other side.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to post this as a one-shot but I am returning to work tomorrow and I’m not sure when I will get some decent writing time, so it’s going to be a 2-shot now.
> 
> And an apology in advance. The more I (attempt) to write, the worse I seem to get.

 

 

Part 1

**_Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness._** (Desmond Tutu)

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Why should I help you?”

“Because Scott and the others are off chasing their tales again,” Theo says. He’s leaning languidly against the door frame, looking bored out of his mind, but Peter can tell from the faint flutter of the beat of his heart that he was more troubled than his indifferent tone implied . “And we need to act now.”

“And again I’ll ask,” he repeats from the table he’s still sitting on. “Why should _I_ help you?”

“C’mon Hale,” Theo straightens, eyes hardening. “You know just as much as me about the Wild Hunt. Probably even more. So you’ll know what happens to the ones who don’t come back.”

“No one comes back,” Peter murmurs. _Do you get it? We don't exist. And we are already forgotten._ “Ever.”

“No one’s ever tried it this way before,” Theo says, raising his eyebrows and shrugging.

“Because it’s stupid and someone’s probably going to die.”

“I’m not leaving him there,” Theo says, shaking his head.

Peter can tell Theo is telling the truth. He’s also acutely aware that he had manipulated a lot of people and used Scott and the others like pawns in his own quest for power, curtesy of a brief run-down from Malia and an order of “never to trust him ever”.

It really sharply contrasted with the kid with hard eyes that appeared in the doorway of Deaton’s backroom with a soft “I’m going to get Stiles back. And you’re coming with me.” When he’d asked Deaton how the wannabe alpha had even got that far back into the clinic he’d been told, in a rather too pleasant tone, that he didn’t care if either of them ripped the other to pieces

“How come you didn’t go to Scott with this plan?”

Theo just scowls and looks away.

“They don’t trust you?” Peter smirks. He waves a hand between them. “Is this some kind of pathetic way of getting back on to Scott’s good side? You going to repent your sins by trying and…” he chuckles. “I mean _trying_ to give him Stiles back? You think the Sheriff will just pat you on the back and say thank you.”

“I’m not _trying_ to do anything,” Theo stalks into the room, now a bite of heat to his words. “I never lied to Stiles about wanting him in a pack. He was one of the reasons I came back.”

“Because of void?” Peter shakes his head and waves his hand away. “Sorry to tell you but that ship has sailed.”

“I know you’re not stupid,” Theo says, stepping closer, daring to stare down at him.

“Well, thank you.” Peter says with a sneer. “I can’t really share the same endearment towards you.”

“Even without the void Stiles was someone I would have had,” Theo admits. He step away and leans against the counter. “He’s smart. He’s calculating. He’s…”

“… got a natural darkness you’d love to manipulate for your own nefarious needs?”

“I was going to say he’s the one who figures things out,” Theo says instead. “Are you seriously telling me you never considered him in your pack when you were an alpha?”

**_“You're the clever one, aren't you?”_ **

“You don’t know anything about me,” Peter growls at him.

“I know one thing,” Theo says calmly. “Stiles is stuck between two worlds. And you left him there.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“No way,” Liam tells them. “Absolutely not.”

“Listen to me,” Theo says, standing over the kid in an attempt to intimidate him. Peter rolls his eyes at the attempt. “You want to help Stiles, right?”

“Of course I do,” Liam snaps, hands tightening around the current item they required.

“The way I see it,” Theo continues quietly, “Is that Scott doesn’t know what to do…”

Liam’s eyes flare angrily.

“- and I’m offering a solution. Admittedly, a lot could go wrong, but…”

“Everything,” Liam interjects. “Everything could go wrong.”

“Oh, come on…” Peter cajoles from behind where he’s casually leaning on a tunnel wall. “What’s the worst that could happen? We die?”

“You’re okay with this?” Liam turns an incredulous look towards him. “He tried to kill Scott.”

“ _I_ tried to kill Scott,” Peter scoffs, looking at his nails. “And from what I hear, _you_ tried to kill him too.”

Liam straightens up, glaring at both of them.

“Why the hell would I hand this over to you?” he demands, waving the sword at them. “You could go on a killing spree between you? Do I look stupid?”

“I don’t know,” Peter shrugs, glancing at Theo. “Did you look stupid when you pulled _him_ out of a hole?”

“That was a rhetorical question,” Liam snaps. “Why didn’t you ask Scott?”

“Also,” Theo asks. “Should I be offended?”

“Because of the same reason you didn’t tell him what you were doing when you brought him back,” Peter says, stepping away from the wall. “Now be a good little boy and handover the goddamn sword.”

Liam lifts his chin defiantly, taking a step closer to him. Peter hears Theo chuckle from behind him. “Told you I liked the kid.”

“Convince me,” Liam says instead.

“Okay,” Peter nods, bearing down on the boy, never breaking eye contact. “You _will_ help us, whether you want to or not.”

Liam lifts his eyebrows, appearing unimpressed.

“You’ll help us because it will help save Stiles,” Peter whispers quietly. “And you and I both know, that no matter who or what you are to Scott, you’ll never be Stiles.”

Liam’s eyes widen in surprise and he takes a hesitant step away.

“In fact, you’ll always be the beta who tried to kill his alpha…”

“I… that wasn’t…” Liam stumbles over his words, eyes flittering over to Theo who, unsurprisingly, is remaining silent.

“Every pack needs someone to ground it. Every alpha needs an anchor,” Peter says. Even as he says it, he senses Theo’s reaction. Eyes keen with interest, flaring with a natural instinct. _Intriguing_. “Scott used to think it was Allison. He was wrong.”

“You mean Stiles?” Liam asks.

“Scott _needs_ Stiles,” Peter says instead. “And what better way to make amends for your actions, but to help bring Stiles back.”

Liam glances between them.

“How do you know Stiles won’t get hurt?”

“You heard the stories about the ones who don’t come back?” Theo says, hands out between them. “You spoke to Lydia, right?”

Liam nods.

“So, just give us the sword,” Theo snaps, angrily swiping his hand through his hair. “And I promise you I’ll bring him back alive, even if I have to die to do it.”

“You’re promises normally suck,” Liam mutters, “And I trust neither of you.” Liam hesitates, hands clasping tightly over the sword.

“You guys can’t even remember him,” Theo says, frustrated.

“Lydia does,” Liam argues.

“Lydia _remembers_ she’s forgotten someone. She knows that Stiles _existed_ ,” Theo shakes his head. “Scott _knows_ that he had a best friend. The Sheriff refuses to believe anything different,” he says bitterly “Because they brought his dead wife back. But I _actually_ remember him. I _know_ Stiles,” he glances across at Peter. “And Peter was the last one of us to actually see him and hasn’t forgotten him yet. Stiles still has a chance, but only if you help us now.”

A pained look crosses the boy’s face

“I hope I don’t live to regret this,” he says reluctantly, before stretching his arm out and offering the sword to them.

“Finally,” Theo says, swiping the sword from Liam’s hand and stalking off. Peter inclines his head towards the boy before following him.

“And it’s called a katana, actually…” he hears trailing after them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Are you going to tell me why your heart is going like a little rabbit?”

Theo is still ahead of him, trying to figure out the best place to stick his sword. He retraces his steps back and forth as he tries to remember where he had broken through.

Theo glances up, once at him, with a scowl before turning his attention back to the ground again.

“Are you scared?” Peter hums at him.

Theo ignores him but Peter can still scent the lingering acrid scent of fear that appeared as soon as they had entered the tunnels.

“What _did_ you see down there?” Peter smirks, amused as Theo lifts his gaze and thins his lips in tension.  “Hmm?”

“Can you concentrate on the task at hand, Hale?” Theo gripes at him, narrowing his eyes in annoyance.

“And what will you have me do?” he nods to where Theo is crouched, hand laid out on the floor. “I was not involved in your banishment or your resurrection, so I’m not really helpful to this particular task.”

“Just think about Stiles,” Theo mutters, standing abruptly. “And how we’re gonna get him out of there.”

“It would help if I knew what was down there before I formulate a plan,” Peter nods to the ground.

“Darkness, death, memories, the screams of the wronged…” Theo shrugs dismissively. “… It’s worse than hell, that’s all you need to know.”

“Sounds like my kind of party,” Peter muses. He reaches out and tugs Theo back by his shoulder when the younger man takes a determined step forward with the raised sword between his hands. “Just one question.”

Theo lowers his hands, turning to look at him. He raises his eyebrows in expectation.

“How do you know your sister isn’t going to climb out of the hole you’re about to make.”

“She won’t,” Theo says. His voice sounds firm but the acrid smell ignites even further, sharp behind his eyes.

“You sure about that?” Peter asks again, squeezing Theo’s shoulder tightly, claws digging in. _Do not lie to me._

“Yes,” Theo says, angrily shaking Peter’s offending hand away. Peter half expects him to plunge the sword in just to prove a point, despite the obvious fear that still lingered in him, and is somewhat surprised when he continues to talk instead. “It’s different. The intention behind it. It won’t happen again.”

“Young Kira wanted your dead sister to take you to hell?”

“No, the skinwalkers did,” Theo says tightly, looking like he wanted any other conversation than this one. “And it could have been anyone.”

“You saw who they wanted you to see.”

Theo nods and looks away.

“We need a way to Stiles and this way leads to the underworld.”

“An underworld of interconnecting tunnels,” Peter slips in, knowing his voice bordered on patronizing.

“When you say it like that it sounds stupid,” Theo huffs, rolling his eyes at him. “And you sound like Stiles.”

“Okay,” Peter says, mock horrified. “Rude.”

“It’s our best option. They’ll have their weakest gaps down there.”

Theo gets ready to crouch again, lifting the sword above his head. He turns his head, looking Peter directly in the eye. “What you’ll see down there won’t necessarily be the same as me.”

“Sometimes the shape you take reflects the person you are,” Peter says out loud. He remembers Talia once saying that to him.

Theo’s eyes cloud over, troubled. A second later he brings the sword down, hard.

The floor cracks and splinters, lighting up like a Christmas tree.

Nothing too spectacular happens

“Anticlimactic,” Peter say dryly.

Theo rolls his eyes, dragging the sword up with a sharp tug.

“You left him there,” he says, both of them staring down into the darkness below. “How was he when you left him?”

Peter remembers him, that day, but not the kid left sprawled on the floor of the tunnel. No, he remembered someone much more broken than that.

“Not good,” he hears himself muttering. “Not good at all.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_“Get up!” he hears_

_Stiles is curled on the floor, trying to sleep._

_“I said – get up,” the voice orders again with a light kick. “And stop feeling sorry for yourself.”_

_“Trying to sleep,” He grunts. He cracks an eye to see a blurry Peter Hale looming over him._

_“Get your sorry ass up,” Peter snaps at him. Hands roughly grab him and haul him up on to his feet._

_“- Hey, stop!” Stiles snaps, swatting at him. Of course, he can’t break the hold the werewolf has on him. “I was trying to get some shut eye.”_

_“You can sleep when you’re dead,” Peter says, jostling him._

_“Yeah?” Stiles gulps, feeling nauseated at the thought. Peter looks unaffected at the faux-pas, and releases his hold on him. Stiles stumbles as a result. “Well, kind of trying to avoid that,” he says and waves at where he had been laying, cooped up against the side of an overturned bench, the floor muddied with old dirt and grime. “Laying low and all that. Maybe sleep my way through it all.”_

_Peter looks at him like he’s grown a second head._

_“You see that woman over there?” Peter snarls in his ear, grabbing him by the back of his neck and forcing his direction to the other side of the waiting room where a middle-aged lady sits at a bench, a young toddler huddled at her side. “She’s been helping some of the others. That guy over there?” Peter snaps, “He’s been scrounging around trying to find food and water,” his head is wrenched roughly to the side. “And that girl…. She’s only a kid Stiles, but she’s looking for clothes and blankets,” he pauses and feels Peter’s mouth at his ears. “And what are you doing? Giving up?”_

_“That’s not…” Stiles starts to say, eyes pricking with tears. “… I’m not…”_

_Peter seems unsatisfied and angrily drags him so he ends up stumbling over outstretched legs and benches._

_“Stop!” Stiles protests, trying to twist out of his grip. “Let me go!”_

_“Peter! Don’t” The woman says, startled. “You’re hurting him.”_

_The little girl curls in on herself and burrows tightly into the side of woman’s floral dress, terrified. She’s little, no older than three, in small dungarees and has pigtails in her hair._

_“This is Stiles,” Peter says shoving him unexpectedly forward. “He’s going to help you.”_

_“I’m what-“ Stiles looks at Peter, suspicious. “Why? Where are you gonna be?”_

_Peter glances away towards tunnels again and Stiles skin prickles in apprehension._

_“Peter?”_

_“I’m going to succeed where our young friend failed.”_

 

* * *

 

_Everything moves shockingly fast. Even when time has no meaning. All he knows for sure was that only a few moments ago he’s been lying uncomfortably on the floor and the next he’s chasing after Peter._

_“Are you out of your mind?” Stiles yells after him._

_“Trust me, Stiles…” Peter Scoffs. “As a former lunatic I am qualified to say that I am completely sane.”_

_“Well, this whole new compassionate Peter Hale shtick is very out of character,” Stiles huffs out as he tries to catch up with him. “So, I’d say you’re having some kind of relapse.”_

_Peter turns around and Stiles flails slightly trying to prevent himself from bouncing off him._

_“Really, Stiles…” Peter says, amused. “You’d rather I be uncompassionate and not help anyone escape?”_

_“I say,” Stiles says, eyes hardening. “That you want me to help the others because you have no intention of coming back.”_

_“Now, now Stiles. That’s a little unfair,” he says, reaching out and patting Stiles on the arm. “I really only want you to help yourself.”_

_Stiles shrugs his hand away and looks up._

_“You’re coming back, right?” he asks, instantly hating the way his voice sounds too small and afraid._

_Peter doesn’t answer straight away and Stiles shakes his head angrily._

_He doesn’t know why he even considered it to be a possibility._

_Disgusted with himself, he turns away._

_“Stiles?”_

_When he turns back, Peter is crouched on the floor, picking something shiny up from the dusty ground._

_“Help that lady look after the ones who can’t look after themselves,” he says. He opens his palm up so that Stiles can see the familiar key chain to the jeep. “And get that radio working.”_

 

* * *

 

 

_When it actually happens, Stiles is left reeling on the floor, fingering his neck where the tendrils of the Ghost Rider’s whip had wrapped around it. The words “Remember me” still on his lips._

 

* * *

 

_Time doesn’t exist. There’s no day or night. No dark or light. The florescent lights stay on all the time, hurting his eyes, and leaving them all in a state of confusion._

_He gets the radio working and speaks to Lydia and Scott. Warns them about what’s to come._

_He helps as much as he can. Makes the rounds over and over. Offers support and advice. Talks to the glassy-eyed until it gives them some clarity over the confusion._

_The little girl always comes with him and the lady. Sometimes even squeezing her small, pudgy hand into his own. They help find a few sparse bottles of water that they painstakingly offer in small sips to everyone, making sure the old and the young go first. Stiles and the lady are always last._

_When they’re alone and it’s just the three of them, the little girl cries and wails, calling for her mother. Stiles offers to take her but the woman always shakes her head and cradles her on her lap._

_“She doesn’t understand,” she says once, patting the girl’s hair._

_“Neither do I,” Stiles tells her back._

 

* * *

 

_Sometime later, and it could be days or weeks for all he knows, Stiles sees the pattern. One that was much too fast and increasing in frequency so Stiles knows that time, if it existed, was running out._

_It started with a general confusion, a feeling of disorientation and temporary forgetting where you were, before they blinked and were back in the present. After that, the people who had the Clarity, as stiles had come to call it, would start to forget – where they came from, what they did, who was waiting for them at home, and then, finally, their name. And then sometime after that, they’d just be… gone, their seat empty and a wailing scream echoing through the tunnels._

_Stiles would always remember them and hear every scream. Stiles wasn’t sure why he was different to everyone else – some would instantly know that there had been someone sitting two seats down from them, and others didn’t. The woman sometimes did and sometimes didn’t, either telling Stiles “Who?” in a lost voice or “Oh,” when she was saddened that someone she had spent time with was gone again. Stiles wasn’t sure which one was worst._

_“It’s happening again,” Stiles says tiredly, watching someone pace back and forth, confused mutterings falling from their lips. Echoing screams drift in and out of the tunnel and Stiles knows it won’t be too long before the man in front of them joins them._

_“You’ll be safe,” the woman tells him, sliding her hand into his and squeezing._

_“Yeah?” he offers her a small smile and squeezes her hand back._

_“You’re different.”_

_“Different how?” he asks._

_“You and Peter,” she says._

_Stiles lifts his head and looks at her quizzically._

_“It’s different for you two,” she cards her free hand through the little girl’s hair who’s curled up and fast asleep on the woman’s lap, snuffling into her chest. “Out of everyone, you’re the only two that knew each other. You’re connected. You know each other’s names. He’ll come for you.”_

_Stiles laughs so hard he nearly falls off the bench._

_“Hush now…” the woman says, lips curling in amusement._

_“Sorry to burst your bubble, lady…” he says, shaking his head. “But Peter isn’t the Good Samaritan you think he is.”_

_“Whatever he is,” she says, nodding her head towards the centre of the waiting room, eyes shining. “He’s out there somewhere and he remembers your name.” Her eyes spill with tears and Stiles suddenly feels bad for laughing. “And that means something. That gives you hope.” She nods down at the little girl. “Which is more than some of us will ever have.”_

 

* * *

 

_Any hope he had was cruelly taken away and shattered into a million pieces._

_He must have fallen asleep because when he opens his eyes he knows instantly that something is wrong._

_Eyes shifting to the woman’s lap Stiles can see the little girl has gone. The beautiful, tiny little girl in her denim dungarees and tufty pigtails had vanished. The woman’s hands still cradle her lap in the last position Stiles remembered her holding her in._

_“Celine?” Stiles asks, panic and an urge to cry overwhelming him._

_The woman turns sluggish eyes to him and Stiles heart plummets._

_“Where’s the baby?” Stiles asks, voice pitching high._ Remember. Please remember

_“What baby?” She asks, eye crinkling in confusion._

_“The little girl. She was on your lap,” Stiles insists, voice sounding scared even to his own ears._

_The woman looks down at her hands, still shaped around the non-existent girl. They shake for a second before she straightens her dress, trying to smooth out the creases the little girl had left._

_“Celine?” Stiles asks again. His voice cracks over the one word._

_She turns back to him, eyes cloudy. Gone._

_“Who’s Celine?”_

_The echoing screams are so much louder after she’s gone. A cacophony of noises that are too much to bear and all he can do is scream along with them_

 

* * *

 

When they finally find him, Stiles is a huddled mess.

Screaming silently, hands clamped to his ears, and eyes closed, he rocks back and forth.

He lets out a wail when his shoulder is grasped. “Stiles!” Theo tries to shout through whatever noise Stiles is hearing. “Stiles!”

Stiles only rocks more in response, shying away from Theo’s touch.

“Get out of the way,” Peter barks at him, shoving the younger wolf away.

“Stiles!” he orders loudly, clasping the boy tightly by the arms. “Open your eyes.”

Stiles eyes open so suddenly Peter is startled at the sheer pain he sees across the light caramel-coloured orbs. They’re blood shot and puffy and Peter can only guess at how long he’d been crying.

Stiles sucks in a shaky breath, his attention drawn to Peter’s hands on his arms before his head drifts up and his eyes crinkle in confusion when they land on his face.

“Please tell me you remember who you are?” Peter says, worried at the clear confusion on Stiles face.

“You came back,” Stiles says instead, voice croaky from disuse and, he presumes, screaming.

Peter doesn’t get a chance to respond.

Stiles suddenly pitches forward into his chest, completely out for the count.

“Now what?” Peter says, turning his attention to Theo.

“First” Theo says, crouching next Peter and Stiles, “We make sure Stiles is okay. Then we get the hell out of here.”

 

* * *

 

 

 ** _Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don't. You are in good company..._** (John Piper)

 

End of Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- So, obviously this isn’t going to be an easy ride for Theo, considering he is forcing himself back to somewhere that, I presume, was pretty traumatising for him. I haven’t completely ignored this… this will be touched and reflected on in the 2nd part.
> 
> \- And, nope, Peter hasn’t completely healed either – that will also be addressed.
> 
> \- Also, a warning for the 2nd part (which I have not yet got a date for as I was off sick from work and had the time for part 1) Stiles will be written as a bit out of sorts (but nothing too different from my usual traumatised Stiles fics) until Peter and Theo sort him out. And I don’t mean in a kinky sense. Get your heads out of the gutter. Lol.


End file.
